Megan and The Flash
by niamhcounty
Summary: (Similar characters, different names Megan, and NO IRIS!) Megan's overcome her illness but now her family's on the brink of collapse and she finds out the superhero of her city - The Flash - has given her superpowers and as a result dark and powerful villains are hunting her. Alex (The Flash) and his team can't bear to let her face it alone.


"You're the Flash, aren't you," I gasped when we came to a halt.

He smiled and set me down on the dark forest floor. "Oh! Is _that_ what they're calling me nowadays?"

I felt like I was stumbling, tripping over my own feet in my mind and on the ground. Wind rushing past my ears but I'm hardly moving. Then – hard and damp, I watched the ground come speeding up to meet me. Before I felt the impact, I was pulled back upright, the leaves and dirt floated away from me and then all I saw was his face. The red mask obscured most of it, but his eyes were piercing and searched my own frantically.

He seemed almost out of breath, but that can't be. This is the fastest man alive. The man who runs hundreds of miles at speeds incomprehensible by any human or manmade machine.

"Are you…" he started to say but hesitates. I felt his hands fall from my shoulders and in a flash he was five feet away.

"It's OK," he said when he turned to face me. Cleared his throat. "That was a long run, it'll wear off soon."

"W-what was that thing back there? He was… on fire." I asked.

"Erm, you don't have to worry about that. We'll wipe your memory when we get back to the labs."

"What?!"

Labs _? Memory wipe?_

I'd spent the last six months in a hospital lab being tested and prodded, injected, scanned, reported. I'd _just_ got out.

"I…I- No! I'm not going to any lab with you."

He laughed a little and ran a gloved hand over his head. "I'm afraid you don't get much of a choice."

I took a step back from him, and then an extra stumble as my heels clipped a fallen branch. I'm sure to stay upright though.

Panic surged through me and I noticed my hands were shaking. Maybe it's a delayed shock to the attack from the man on fire, or the run, or meeting the Flash. Or maybe it's my fight or flight system kicking in, maybe something is telling me I'm in danger.

Newspaper headlines, chatter in the streets and conversations over the dinner table filled my mind for a moment. "You're dangerous," I spluttered out without thinking. His eyes widened in the holes of his mask, the stare was so hard I felt my stomach tighten.

Slowly, he said, "I just saved your life."

"My dad-

In a sudden whoosh of cold air his eyes were looking down on me, barely two inches from my face.

" _Your dad_ thinks I'm dangerous?" he growled.

My mouth was gaping for some time before I squeaked out "Yes."

"And do _you_ think I'm dangerous?"

"Yes," I breathed.

A flash of red and then I was gone. We were moving but I didn't feel him running, just pressure building and smoke, closing in on my lungs. My ears were filled with wind, rushing and howling all around me. I hardly saw, just fiery reds and orange colours. It didn't last long, maybe a second or two before I was thrown into a wall – hard, brick and mortar, all jagged and scratched it burnt my skin as I fall onto the floor.

Everything's still, cold and flat.

I took in a shaky breath and coughed it straight out. Another. And another.

My head was pounding, something wet and warm oozed over my forehead.

The room… or cell… came into focus and the bulb hanging above me cast dim light over four grey walls. There were no doors, only one barred square opening and beyond it looked pitch black.

When I managed to stand, I touched my head. My hair was matted and my fingers came away dripping red. I let out a small cry, "Help."

Hours pass.

I'm sure I passed out several times, I end up curled up in a corner with my eyes closed. I tried not to think or feel, just keep breathing.

I tore strips of my shirt off, starting from the hem, and dabbed my head with it. Eventually the bleeding ceased and I laid the fabric out in front of me. The bloodstains almost looked artistic - some were dry, some wet, creating a variation of hues and patterns.

It's then that a noise from outside the cell stirred me. Grunts, a slam, then shouts.

 _They're coming to kill me_ , I think. _The Flash is going to kill me._ I stood up and desperately considered how weak I was, but I knew I could punch. And if I could just run… run from the fastest man alive.

"Get away from the wall!" a voice screamed from the other side. Before I have a second to process it, he's there, standing in front of a gaping hole where the barred opening was. Bits of concrete and rubble were stacked neatly on two sides of the hole, and I didn't even see an explosion.

But I do see _him_.

 _Fight. Hit. Run._

I lashed out and punched at his side, then made a break for the giant exit behind him. I caught his eyes, watching me in disbelief.

I came out in a dark hallway and started to sprint towards light, leaping over a dead man as I go. I saw doors at the end, concealing bright lights like a clinical hospital corridor. I was almost there, I was reaching to push them open. And then I was stopped, a force held me around the waist and my feet were dangling above the floor.

" _This_ way," he muttered, before turning us around and running.

The feeling returned to me, the rushing air and wind and flashes of red.

I was gasping, screaming "No!" but my voice was carried off like dust in a tornado.

Moments later we came to a stop, this time in a bright lab. Everything was glinting in the light, all silver and shine.

As soon as I was steady on my feet, I fought him. I turned in his arms and shoved away from his chest, punching and kicking where I could but he was too fast – dodging every attack I made – and so much stronger than me. He pushed me backwards and I landed on the floor with a thud and a cry.

"What are you doing?!" he exclaimed, shaking my shoulders.

"NO. No!" I screamed over and over, pushing against him with all my strength. "Don't kill me!"

As if this shocked him, his grasp loosened instantly. "Kill you? I just saved your life! _Again_."

" _No_! No. You… were…" I panted. He got off me and stood, stumbling a few steps backwards.

"I was saving you," he told me again slowly.

"I…"

"The man on fire took you. Remember, when we were in the forest?"

"No… _you_ …" I barely muttered.

"I didn't know he could run like me, either. I don't know why he took you, either, but we'll find out."

Nothing made sense to me.

"You're going to stay here with us. You're safe at STAR labs." He walked around to a glass desk spanning half the length of the room and taps something into a keyboard. He glanced up at me through his eyelashes. "Nobody's trying to kill you here, OK?"

"Why… why should I trust you?"

"Because I'm the good guy!" he said with a laugh. "I've been here for years. Saving people, saving the city. I don't even know who you are, what reason would I have to kill you?"

"You're not the good guy, though. It's all over the news! _The Flash went rogue and works with the criminals he used to catch_."

He leant forward on the desk. "That isn't _me_."

"But-"

"Someone's impersonating me, and now I've seen the man on fire run, I think I've got a pretty good idea who it is."

I think back to running from the forest, the smoky wind clenched my lungs, and a wave of dizziness rolled over me. I started to fall back and brace myself for an impact, but instead plopped prematurely onto a cushion and felt the back of a desk chair that wasn't behind me a moment ago.

His hand rested on my shoulder, and when I turned to face him, he touched near the wound on my head.

"We really should check your head out."

As if on cue, a lift opened and a woman walked into the room. She was beautiful, smartly dressed in a slender pencil skirt and glossy red waves bounced around her shoulders as she strode with precision towards me. She picked up a tablet computer from the desk.

"Good evening, Alex," she said. I see her looking at the Flash, then at me and her smile quickly drops from her face. "Oh. Shoot."

 _Alex_ sighed with a half-smile in the woman's direction and pulled his mask off, releasing wild light mousey hair, "It's OK." He extended a hand to me, "Alexander Ambridge. Pleased to meet you."

We shook briefly. Bizarrely, considering the day's events. "Ambridge? Like the bank?"

"Yeah, my dad's crown and glory."

"And I'm Rachel," the red haired woman also shook my hand sharply.

"My name's-"

"Megan Priestly," they chorused.

I was left stunned. I never told the Flash – or Alex - my name.

"How did you…?"

They shared a sideways glance with each other before Rachel started to talk. "You were involved in a case we were dealing with a few months back, but it just seemed like you were an unlucky civilian. So you won't remember any of it."

"So I've been here before?" I seized up at the thought of them wiping my memory, but tried not to let it show.

They nodded in response. "Of course I regret that now. That was a coincidence we probably shouldn't have brushed over." Rachel turned her back to me.

I pushed myself off the chair and soon realised it was a bad idea. "Why?" The lab turned on its side. "Wh…what happened t…?" I heard my own words slur together before my knees buckled out from beneath me. As the darkness closed in, all I could see was Alex's face. Clear from his mask but full of panic.

I woke up in a hospital bed in a dim room. Out the window I could see the city's towers and buildings lit up against the night sky, the room was level with the very tops of most of them. The linens I laid in were clean white and I was attached with tiny tubes to machines beeping and pumping at either side of me. Looking straight ahead, I saw the main part of the lab and people gathered around the glass desk.

"She's awake," someone said.

Rachel came into the room first followed by two men. One, with silver running through his hair and dressed smartly in a black-as-black suit. The other, younger, and dressed accordingly in torn up jeans and a t-shirt that exclaimed something about atoms. Rachel asked me how I felt and the men introduced themselves as Dr. Martin and Hudson respectively.

Hudson proceeded to comment that he, too, was a doctor but 'didn't feel the need to label stuff' and Rachel told him to shut up while she took a syringe of blood from me. They told me I'd been out for a few hours and they'd managed to patch up my skull in the meantime.

"We also found your phone," Hudson passed it to me gingerly.

I unlocked it and the screen illuminated several cracks (two of which, I was too embarrassed to admit, were there the day before) and what seemed to be thousands of missed calls and texts from mum, dad and our home number. I flicked through the messages, realising coldly that this was first time I'd thought about my family, friends or anyone apart from myself and the Flash all day.

"We took care of it, don't worry," Dr Martin spoke up.

"How exactly?" I asked him.

"Rachel called your mum and told her you were staying at her place tonight."

I flicked to Rachel. "And she believed you?"

"I said I was a college senior, mentoring you with applications and stuff. And that your phone died." she relayed with a shrug.

I was impressed, "Oh, she'll love that."

"So… um," I continued, "where's Alex?"

Hudson answered. "He'll be here soon, I just text-" there was no need for him to finish once Alex had landed in the room in a blast of air.

"Hi," he greeted his friends, looking slightly flustered. Then his gaze settled on me, "Meg. You alright?"

His impressive entrance; the way he chirped my nickname; and his red suit hugging each muscle in his arms and shoulders as he leaned towards me, grabbing the rail at the bottom of my bed, did something to me. It started like a flutter in my stomach, then my heart was warm. It moved to my spine, sending tingles and itches up and down. It finally spread across my body, a fizzing wave of electricity coursed through each fibre right to the tips of my fingers and toes. All I could do was smile sweetly at him, while my mind whirled – trying to comprehend, but completely disorientated.

"Woah!" Rachel cried out, staring into a monitor on the wall. "What the hell was that?!"

Dr Martin came up behind her and furrowed his brows. "That's a spike of 400 watts."

Next was Alex. "What!" he laughed as he left the bottom of my bed and I pined for him to go back. "That's not possible. Must be a mistake."

"Huh?" I queried timidly. They all looked down at me at once.

Dr Martin spoke carefully. "Your heart just beat 400 times in _one second_ … If this system wasn't built for _Alex_ 's body and its capabilities, you would've broken the heart monitor."

"You should be dead right now, a human heart can't do that." Rachel told me, her expression wrung out with concern.

"Exactly, which is why it must be a mistake, right?" Alex asked.

"Nooo, no, no, no," Hudson muttered, a smile brewing on his face. "This was no way a mistake." He took a step towards my bed.

"W-what are you all talking about?" I tried to sit up but a shooting pain in my back halted me.

"The first time we met you, Megan, you almost die-"

"Hey! What the hell are you doing, Hudson? We wiped her memory for a reason," Alex exclaimed.

"No, he's right. Tell them," Rachel said. I hadn't realised she'd left the room, but now she walked back in holding clothes and pair of expensive-looking trainers.

Anxiety was rising in my throat now, it burst out in a squeaky "What is it!" in Hudson's direction.

"The first time we met you, Megan, you almost died. Well, you sort of did, for a moment," he continued. "Caught in an attack by Captain Cold. The Flash restarted your heart using the electricity in his body like a defibrillator. And you retained that electricity."

I was struggling to come to terms with how I had _died_ but couldn't remember any of it. Surely something that significant would override any memory wiping technology. My mind felt fuzzy and confused when I tried to imagine it, as if I was knocking on a door in my sleep but no one was opening it.

Rachel spoke next. "When I was patching you up here at the labs, I touched your arm and I got an electric shock." She pointed at my upper arm and for the first time I saw a thin silvery pink scar, running above the crease of my elbow.

"You guys never told me any of this. Why didn't I know about this?" Alex asked, he'd gone very pale, but everyone else ignored him. I sensed Alex wasn't the kind of guy that got ignored often.

"We presumed you'd retained it temporarily, which isn't uncommon. So we just sent you home like the others." Rachel finished.

"Clearly, it wasn't temporary," Hudson raised his eyebrows with a long intake of breath.

Everyone went quiet for a while, I lay and processed what I'd heard.

"So… so, you're saying, that… the electricity is still inside of me. And it's… it's causing my heart to beat fast like that?"

"Yeah," Hudson replied solemnly.

"But her body should've absorbed the electricity," Alex was pacing and gesticulating at his team. "That was months ago, it _can't_ still be there unless-"

"Unless the electricity did more than restart the heart," Dr Martin interrupted. I'd almost forgotten he was in the room. "Unless it also triggered a dormant energy supply. Like Alex has in his own body." A silence settled around the room.

"Of course," Hudson was rubbing his head. "It was a _kinetic energy transfer_."

"I transferred the speed force… _to her_?" Alex almost whispered, and everyone looked to me. I was gasping for breath, laying there helpless and weak, in a shiny lab surrounded by extraordinarily smart people and a superhero. Suddenly things were falling into to place in my head, everything felt clearer than it ever had done but at the same time my world was taking off before my eyes. Everything I knew flashed past me in an instant, I knew I'd never catch up to my old life.


End file.
